Page 160

“Why, I am your greatest love, of course! The lost princess Chrysanthia.” She continued to hold out her arms expectantly…

And Jagaros continued to stay rooted to the spot.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

Now a flash of impatience forked across her features. Just for a moment. “What a silly question. Now hand her over. My baby’s hungry.”

Indeed, my warble had broken into a wail, my fists curling and waving in Jagaros’s arms. He took a hesitant step toward Chrysanthia, but paused again a breath’s moment before giving me away.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh, I am more than okay. I have such great plans for this one.”

“Plans?” Jagaros asked stiffly, his stare drifting downward.

It was then that I noticed what he noticed. Like a gleam of sweat trailing down Chrysanthia’s neck and arms, but something darker, a pearly gray oozing from her skin. Hardly noticeable in the shadows that bathed the classroom.

She smiled, fingers reaching for me.

“I will take her to Her Majesty’s ships and train her to fight in the upcoming war. She will be the greatest spy and assassin and warrior our people have seen in centuries. An honor…” She glanced up at Jagaros and cleared her throat. Seemed to force out, “Will you come with us?”

Jagaros enunciated every word oh-so-carefully over the increased fervor of my cries. “No. Don’t go. This island is her home. We would be better off raising her in a dull little village, in a respectable, unassuming home.”

Chrysanthia’s expression darkened at that. “She belongs in the sea.”

And she snatched me so quickly, so viciously, that it would have ripped me in half if Jagaros had held on to me.

So he let me go, just as Chrysanthia said in such a low, hissing voice that only he could hear, “A dull little life is not for a Reeve. Even her death will be grand. Now kiss your daughter goodbye, Jagaros Kalaidesique.”

A sudden hammer of grief nearly knocked him off his feet. His vision swayed, flooding with tears as he dipped his head.

He’d nearly pressed his lips to my forehead when he called upon Fabian’s Summoning magic swimming through his shifted veins.

And drained the blood from her head.

I knew from experience what a feat it was, to grasp a liquid and tug on it like that. Only the most advanced Object Summoner could do such a thing, but using Fabian’s form, Jagaros was an advanced Object Summoner.

Chrysanthia’s eyes rolled in the back of her head. She wobbled on her feet, and Jagaros caught the baby version of me moments before we both hit the bloodstained floorboards—along with her crescent knife.

“CHRYSANTHIA?” he yelled then, twisting on the spot, eyes scouring the room for signs of my mother.

Because I knew just as well as he did that the thing he’d just knocked to the ground was not her.

That pearly gray matter came rolling off its unconscious body, slithering like a dozen pythons toward us. Jagaros stumbled back, then turned and sprinted out the classroom door with me against his chest, onto the dirt street—

Where Fabian—the real Fabian—nearly jumped out of his skin from where he had been strolling down the street with a huge grin stamped on his face.

That grin popped into a gape when Fabian’s eyes flew wide open at the sight of himself holding a wiggling, wailing baby.

“Please.” Jagaros ran to him as that pearly gray matter slithered from the open classroom door behind him. “Take her somewhere safe. Please.”

And he thrust me into Fabian’s hands.

Despite his obvious shock and confusion, Fabian gathered me in a careful, gentle cradle, and I calmed against his heartbeat. His eyebrows pinched. “I don’t understand. Is this part of my Final Test? I thought I just passed it.”

“No.” Jagaros threw another frantic glance over his shoulder, where the pearly gray snakes had thudded off the steps, onto the dirt. “Please. She’s just a baby. Don’t let anyone take her.” After a split second of consideration, he held out the crescent knife and forced it into Fabian’s free hand. “Go! Get her out of here!”

It was at that moment that the pearly gray snakes began to lift, rising and blooming into a dozen shapes of the same woman with dark locks of hair and honey-warm skin and eyes the shade of a sky overlooking the sea.